Labor Day Weekend Loggings: 8/31-9/2/14

Labor Day Weekend Loggings: 8/31-9/2/14

I've missed out on most of the activity this weekend, although there's been a lot. Just checked the radio & have been listening to the Old-Time Radio unid. It's been in the 3300-3500 kHz area the past week or so, but it's back to the nominal 6770.

Old-Time Radio unid: 6770, 8/31, 1630+ Good signal here. Caught the end of the Adventures of Phillip Marlowe, then a brief "only you can stop forest fires" PSA, into CBS Radio IDs. Then an NBC Radio ID and into Richard Diamond, Private Detective show. Both of these shows are from the late '40s. The Adventures of Philip Marlowe has some great, cheesy lines in it.

YHWH: 9605, 9/1, 0400+ Saw that this one was logged by Kilokat7 on HFU, so I tuned in. Could only copy about 20% (maybe) of the voice, but did hear "Yahweh." Checked  one of my good recordings of the station from 21 MHz and the announcer's voice does sound the same. I think it's great how this station operates right in a number of different SWBC bands.

Logging: 8/14/14

Logging: 8/14/14

Just missed a show of WEAK being rebroadcast on 6932 kHz USB, a favorite frequency of pescadors.

Old-Time Radio unid: 6770, 8/14, 0410+ fair signal with lots of static crashes. Murder at Midnight episode. I think it was "The House Where Death Lived," which was originally aired on December 23, 1946.

Loggings: 8/5-8/8/14

I haven't had time to update some loggings on here. Also, I've planned for about the past week to write an Auds'n'Ends about the end of the Old-Time Radio unid. This station came on the air around May 18 and was on nearly continuously until into July, then it signed off . . . and it looked like that might be it. But it's back:

Old-Time Radio unid: 6770, 8/5, 2257+ Excellent signal with old-time radio shows. 0200-0300: Abbott & Costello Show with atomic bomb skits and Mel Blanc Show with Mel finally getting engaged to Betty, but  sorta gets engaged to someone else, too.

MAC: 6950.3, 8/5, ca.0140 Excellent signal with the James Stewart show. Talking about the Jimmy Stewart marathon that I think's going to be on AMC. Big band music. Talk about how the show was done on the fly, with no pre-planning.

XLR8: 6925U, 8/5, 0140+ I was checking on this one with the backup receiver and antenna. Signal was fairly weak--especially on this receiver/antenna combo. Think it mostly sounded like country music

Old-Time Radio unid: 6770, 8/7, 0000+ Excellent signal with Amos'n'Andy program. Andy wants to propose to Gertrude. Evidently, this episode is called "Marriage Proposal Mixup" and was originally aired on November 17, 1944.

Rave On Radio: 6925U, 8/7, ca.0210-0220* Jerry Garcia birthday show, with appropriate music. Near the end, the ROR announcer said that he was going to sign off and burn off the last of the gas from the generator. Jerry Garcia SSTV at the end of the show. Good signal--one of the best I've had from ROR.

Generation Wild 100: 6950U, 8/7, ca.0210 Huge signal noted in passing on my way to record ROR. Moody Blues song--I didn't write down which one, but I think it was "Gemeni Dream." Regardless, it was one from the late era. GW100's SSB audio sounds as nice as Wolverine Radio and X-FM (when they were doing USB and not C-Quam stereo).

Old-Time Radio unid: 6770, 8/8, 2115+ VG signal with an "Our Miss Brooks" episode. I think Miss Brooks was auctioning off something

Nonpirate logs

MARS net: 6833.5U, 8/7, 0020+ Talking about weather and golfing

Trenton Military (VOLMET): 6754U, 8/7, 0022+ Clear IDs & timecheck at 0025. Lots of aeronautic weather for places in Canada

Future Radio Projects?

Future Radio Projects?

Yes, I know that I need to finish the cabinet for the Philco 87. But, I bought three rough project radios at the Berryville hamfest on Sunday. These will probably wind up sitting around in the radio room or in the attic for one or more years. I bought the lot of three for $20, so I feel like I can't go wrong. But these are going to require a LOT of work:

A Philco 37-620 tombstone. Knobs are missing, the photofinish is toast, the escutcheon has rust and the paint has worn through. It looks better in the photo than it does in real life. Also, I looked up information on this radio and apparently it contains some tough-to-reach capacitors and a tar-sealed capacitor block.

An RCA T6-9 tombstone. Rough finish, peeling veneer, missing knobs, and dial that's wearing off some of the labels are the highlights of this one. I wish I could find new grille cloth in that wheat pattern. It's very cool.

The last radio has the most possibilities: an uncommon version of the Philco 38-15 tabletop. This is by far the cleanest radio; the biggest problem is, again, missing knobs. Why were people stealing the knobs? Was the latest owner using them on other radios or did someone have the biggest radio knob collection in his town?

Weekend Pirate Loggings: 7/26-7/28/14

Weekend Pirate Loggings: 7/26-7/28/14

Test: Radio GSV from Scotland said the station will be testing to North America on 6965 kHz with music and IDs at 0330 UTC tonight. The station tested with Morse code a day or so ago, but it wasn't really heard, so we'll see how if the propagation improves.

L0de Radio: 6930U, 7/26, ca.0400 Fair signal, but not quite strong enough to sit back and understand everything. All telephone callins. I hit record so that I could go back & hear the show on headphones.

stuck in the office for part of today, so I was listening to Dutch MW pirates via the University of Twente web receiver:

Radio Odynn: 1628, 7/26, 2040+ Extremely strong & nice audio with music by Stray Cats, Ramones, Aerosmith, Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Madness, & later Dolly Parton singing "Stairway to Heaven." Professional-sounding IDs and announcements in both English and Dutch.

Unid: 1620, 7/26, 2040+ Good signal with schlager music. I was mostly staying on 1628 kHz, hoping that I'd hear an ID there first. I think it went off around 2100 or so.

Unid: 1636.5, 7/26, 2040+ This one was almost entirely schlager, but I did hear a couple of songs in English. I think this is the station that played ABBA "Knowing Me, Knowing You," but I'm typing this from memory. This station even played a yodeling song! Another extremely strong signal, but I didn't hear any talk or IDs.

Passed by a couple of other stations... I think one was 1648 & another one was around 1665 kHz.

Loggings from PA, USA:
Tip & Elvis Radio Show: 6220, 7/26, 2315 The Dutch theme of the day continues with this one. Thunderstorm crashes are making this difficult, but the signal is good for this time of day. I'm hoping to find my headphone adapter so that I can dig out some details from the noise.

Radio Free Whatever: 6925U, 7/27, 0212+ Very strong, but really "watery" sounding signal--kinda like low-bit-rate streaming audio. Canned station ID, then long pause and Dick Weed & Stephen mentioning that maybe that hard drive failed. But more music from a new drive. Talk about wearing lavendar-scented Hefty garbage bags as ponchos to sleep in, or just for comfort. It's been a month or maybe a couple months since I've heard RFW.

Wolverine Radio: 6940U, 7/27, 0216+ About the same strength as RFW. "Dream Lover," ID "Dream, Dream, Baby" "California Dreamin'" "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night." I think I might have an idea what the theme of tonight's show is. Nice to hear Wolverine R again, too.

And here's the SSTV image from the end of the show:

After Wolverine signed off, another station was on 6940 kHz USB with music and an SSTV image:

Liquid Radio (per HFU log): 6925.2, 2/27, 0410+ carrier here. Not sure if it's a pirate or if so, who it is, but I'm assuming that it's one. Left the radio room to get the computer & update the blog and the carrier was gone

Unid: 6960L, 2/27, 0419+ Decent signal here in heavy static crashes with bits of different music genres, announcements, etc. On & off the air a lot. A couple different announcements in Spanish. Thanks to Skipmuck for the tip on this one. Until I hear more that shows otherwise, I'm thinking pescadore broadcast

HOPE X Follow up: 7/22/14

HOPE X Follow up: 7/22/14

I can see that I planned the trip to HOPE X backwards. We arrived in NYC on Thurs. morning and spent the day walking 7+ miles around the city. We saw some cool stuff and I got a few pics of different Toynbee tiles up 5th Ave.

I was dreading speaking on Friday & woke up at 4:30 AM, after dreaming that I'd been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor (yes, it was just a dream!). I walked down to the Hotel Pennsylvania and registered in the morning and spent the next few hours writing a bit more of the talk. In the end, I wrote about 10 pages and threw out two.

There were a number of talks that I wanted to see, but I felt that I needed to try to focus on mine. So, I puttered around a while. More than 3,000 people attended HOPE X in person and the three conference rooms were packed. Pretty unnerving, but after some prayer time, I calmed down and gave a pretty lifeless talk, but at least I didn't stumble too much or say something crazy because my mind went blank.

Thanks to the graciousness of the attendees and the cool stuff that pirates have done on shortwave, I heard positives from a number of people afterward. We had to leave almost immediately after the talk, which was unfortunate because I'd like to have sat around and talked to people individually about shortwave and pirate radio.

One comment/question that I got during the talk was about the paint scheme of Radio Nordsea International's ship, the Mebo II. My apology to the guy who commented on it because I was focused on trying to get as much of the talk in as possible and I just kinda kept going. But it really was a good comment.

I showed an image of the Mebo II and ad libbed about how it was hard to miss the ship because of its color scheme. He mentioned that it was razzle dazzle camouflage that was used extensively in World War I. The concept was that people are going to see the ship anyway, so you might as well paint a bunch of crazy angles on it and maybe a U-boat or opposing ship will have problems with depth perception, etc. and miss the ship.

I've been reading bits about Radio Nordsea International for years, but I don't really anyone ever mentioning that it was painted in razzle dazzle camouflage. I've seen in a number of radio articles that the writers mentioned the "psychedelic" paint scheme. It seems that the station personnel must have known something about razzle dazzle camo, but especially considering that the station was anchored in place and had the giant radio towers, I'd think that it was more of a joke or "cool factor" than anything--especially considering how often they displayed their ship in publicity materials.

And here are some photos of razzle dazzle ships from World War I.

Weekend Loggings: 7/19-7/21/14

Weekend Loggings: 7/19-7/21/14

Radio Ga-Ga?: 6925U, 7/20, 0050+ "Blitzkrieg Bop" & "Somebody Put Something in My Drink" by The Ramones. I guess this is a Tommy Ramone tribute

Radio True North: 6925, 7/20, 0400+ Signal on the weak side of fair. I recorded it, but I need to sift through the recording for some details.

I received a couple of SSTV images from Red Man Radio while the receiver was on overnight:

 

 YHWH: 15655, 7/20, 1624+ I seem to have some local noise on the frequency. The signal is really weak, so I'm just getting enough faint fade ups to to hear the main announcer speaking (but it's not copyable again this time). My best reception of YHWH was definitely up on 21 MHz.


MAC: 6950, 7/21, 0020+ Excellent signal with Jimmy Stewart show on MAC. Novelty song "I Love a Murder Mystery." Live timechecks, IDs, e-mail address, talking about Donna Reed and the variations between the script and how It's a Wonderful Life actually turned out. Song announced as "Tuck Me to Sleep,"but I believe the actual title is "My Old Kentucky Home." An Artie Shaw instrumental. James Stewart weather report.

Captain Morgan: 6950, 7/21, 0018+ Excellent signal, Just heard sign on with '50s rock. Great to hear the captain again! Unfortunately, I was out and just got caught this in the chunk of time that I was recording MAC.